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Source code documentation. On March 14, Ann Harrison released a very high-level overview of the source-code.
There is a partly-finished Internal architecture document, written by Deej Breedenburg around 1991. This is the best documentation available outside the source code. The source code consists of around 1.1 million lines in about 140 .C files and 200 .h files.
But we DO have plenty of IB architects and software engineers within our community who know the source code thoroughly. It has been proposed that a group convene between now and July and meet at BorCon in San Diego to put together overviews of each of the 30 (?) functional modules. More news of that as arrangements firm up.
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'Official' manuals. Since V. 5.x these haven't shipped as hard copy but as a series of PDF books which replaced both the earlier WinHelp files and the little, soft-covered white books of yesteryear. Bill Karwin was the main original author, with more recent changes and additions by the now-departed tech writers.
The V5.x manuals have a teal cover with a cranberry stripe at the bottom and on
the spine. Five volumes ship with the InterBase 5.x Media Kit.-
API Guide
Data Definition Guide
Language Reference
Programmer's Guide
Operations Guide
The FrameMaker files for the V. 6 manuals are complete. Some list discussion is currently going on about how formal documentation will be managed under Open Source. Catch it here.
The newest Beta 6.0 version is available for downloading from the InterBase site and some mirror sites. Download here (10+ Mb)
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Third-party books. As we all know, there is NOTHING in the publishers' listings. A digest (in German) of several topics from the user manuals was published privately a few years ago by Jopi Janning and Paul Beach. It's now out of print.
In January, I received an offer from an individual, who told me he wanted to back a company to do on-line publishing. He asked me to set up the company and author a book for which he knew I'd tried unsuccessfully to find a willing publisher several times over the past four years. The book was to be 'proof of concept' of our joint ideas about community-based Internet publication. The title was to be
InterBase Developer's Handbook.
It was a very exciting concept - but very hush-hush and too secret to talk about very much. A contract was drawn up. I ordered a continuous Internet connection and an extra phone line. I spent much of my free time investigating hosting options, software and a myriad of other details. I made sure I was going to be free to launch into it and waited for the contract to arrive.
Well, much water passed under the bridge in all too short a time. The plans for the publishing company and our long-awaited book took two changes of direction. Then, one day, the backer disappeared and the plans went into the filing cabinet.
But the InterBase Developer's Handbook is not going back into the Dream Box. It is going to happen. You can read about it here and find out how YOU can get involved.
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